Doug Jones

            On Wednesday morning I almost had all the chords worked out for “Ex-Fan des Sixties” by Serge Gainsbourg. The last verse is repeated three times with slight changes in some of the chords but I predict I’ll have it done by Thursday morning. 

            Song practice with the new machine that Washburn sent for my B string didn’t change the problem of it going out of tune. It went out of tune as often but just a little less far off. I’ll make allowance for the possibility that Harold put on a new B string, but after tomorrow morning it probably won’t be any better. I might have to send the guitar back to Washburn after all.

            In the late morning I finished cleaning the top of the stove, including the elements, the trays and all the grease that had gathered underneath. I also used steel wool to get all the black stuff off the lid of my kettle. I still have to do the same to the rest of the kettle but that will be for Thursday. But the clean lid looks funny on top of the black kettle. 

             I had Triscuits and cheddar for lunch. 

             When I got up from a siesta I posted my blog and decided to take a bike ride. Sunset today would be at 16:56, and after I got ready and was out on the street it was 16:14, so I figured that if I rode one way until 16:35 and headed back I would be home by sunset. I rode to Bathurst and Bloor and then turned right, back down to Queen and home. I got here with a minute to spare. It wasn’t a very interesting ride because the sky was overcast but at least I got some exercise. 

             I looked through my videos of me performing “Un violon, un jambon” and found that the best one was from June 24. But when I imported the video and the sound recording to Moviemaker I discovered that the computer recording on that date didn’t catch and it was a silent file. So I just went with the audio from the camera, isolated and that song and uploaded it to YouTube. 

             I worked for half an hour on my poem series “My Blood in a Bug”.

             I worked some more on partially colourizing my skateboarder photo.

             I translated a bit of “Les Enfants du Paradis.” 

             I made a mini pizza with a slice of Bavarian sandwich bread, tomato sauce, my broken up last burger, and old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching Star Trek Discovery. 

             Spoiler alert! 

             In this story Discovery goes to a remote planet to answer a distress signal from a Kelpian doctor who was pregnant at the time. This was over a hundred years ago. The planet is believed to be the source of The Burn. When they arrive in orbit they discover that the planet is made of dilithiun and that there is one life sign. Saru believes that it is the child of the doctor. Saru, Michael and Hugh beam down but they can only stay for four hours before the radiation from the dilithium kills them. When they arrive they enter a hologram and all of their appearances are changed. Michael is a Trill, Hugh is Bajoran and Saru is human. The holographic world was created to raise and protect the boy after his mother died. But the boy Su’kal is an adult with the mind of a boy and has no understanding of there being anything outside of the hologram and so he is frightened and runs away when they tell him they are from outside. Later when Michael finds him she pretends to be a socialization program. He responds positively for a while but becomes frightened again. Saru tries to calm him with a Kelpian lullaby. There is also a sea monster in the program that Su’kal is supposed to face before he can leave. All this time the radiation levels are becoming dangerous. Michael figures that it is actually the Su’kal that is the source of the Burn. Meanwhile Tilly has been made acting captain of Discovery. Osyraa arrives in orbit. Tilly tells Stamets to get them out of there with the spore drive but Osyraa’s men transport to him and put something on his head that controls his mind. Book leaves on his ship to rescue the away team and Adira stows away. Before Book can stop her she beams down to the planet. A little later he transports Michael to his ship but Saru and Hugh stayed behind to help Su’kal. Osyraa takes over Discovery and forces Stamets to jump them to Federation Headquarters. Michael, Book, Saru, Hugh and Adira are stranded. 

             It was interesting to see Doug Jones without his Saru prosthetics. Acting under prosthetics has been his specialty for most of his film career. He played one of the spooky creatures in the award winning Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Hush.” He played Abe Sapien in Hellboy. He played all four imps in the film “Doom.” He is also a mime and a contortionist.